Posted by: Mike (baseballnc@Hotmail.com) on Tue Jun 28 23:44:01 2005

> im only 13 and last year i was the top player in the league 5 HRs and a 600 BA. this year im in pony 13&14 year old division i didnt get much playing time because of my hitting. well every oppurunity ive got ive either grounded out or struck out. My dad says im chopping. i want to make an impact in 13 year old all stars. i think my problem is my batting stance for one because im constantly swtching it because i have no clue what to do. no matter what i do i cant seem to get the ball off the ground any help is appreciated!!!!!!!!

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Dan,

Sounds like you are having the same problem my son had last year. He was hitting everything solid but it was drilled in to the ground 5' from home plate. I looked at his swing on video and seen he was not slotting his elbow and his lead arm was breaking down. Meaning he was bending at the elbow and pushing the bat (hands to the ball). This was causing the bat from a vertical position to contact position (down ward motion), never getting into the path of the ball except for the split sec. it made contact.
What I did is go back to step one on Jack's video. Get to a good contact position on the heavy bag. Have him rotate from contact to launch position. Working on the elbow leaving the slot and entering the slot each time. I even went as far to place a string across the batting cage. The string was in a down ward angle (ball path). I placed a tee and a ball just above the path. I had him swing until he hit the ball with out hitting the string. I would watch to make sure he wasn’t too high and the bat was in that path of the ball thru out the swing. This worked well for us. He is hitting consistent line drives and is leading the team in avg and slugging %.

Mike